Getting To Know Your Tiny Dinosaur Friends
by HVK
Summary: Grimlock's destructive habits lead Strongarm to suggest that he gets a hobby. He settles on bird watching, in such a way that she ponders the seeming inevitability of all Autobots going at least a little bit crazy.


Disclaimer: I do not own Transformers or any intellectual properties in this story; this is a work of entertainment without monetary gain.

* * *

Strongarm put her hands and clapped once, and Grimlock's head twitched to face her. She said, "It's come to my attention that, after this unfortunate fiasco with the human Eiffel Tower and the world's largest burger you somehow towed across the sea-"

"We needed a distraction, and you got one!" Grimlock said. He crossed his arm. Somehow it made a shockwave.

Strongarm let her face go blank for a second. The idea of many long and painful lectures on the important of not being overt in their actions especially on the subject of _not defacing national landmarks on global television _played across her processes. It came with the frightfully attractive notion of doing so with a small pool of defanged scraplets to make sure he got the point. She dismissed it, eventually. But the notion was hard to let go.

("_You're going to work with people who are, to be frank, insane," _she'd been told in training. _"It's a sadly inevitable part of being an Autobot. You work in this business long enough, you work with bots that day in and day out seem sensible and reliable as metal, and then they do something that makes a turbo-fox seem downright sedate and cool by comparison. I don't know, like becoming a mild pyromaniac and then intentionally taking for an alt mode an alien vehicle expressively built to fight fires. Because it's ironic or something. I don't know, that happened to this guy I know. Poor Inferno. He was better off trying for a beast mode. 'What's the worst that could happen,' he said. Hah! You don't even want to know! Anyway._

_"Sometimes about being an Autobot makes you loopy. I expect it's Primus getting close to you. He IS all about growth and change. That sort of thing isn't universally positive."_

_Strongarm hadn't been too sure about the theology of that statement, but she'd taken it to heart, nonetheless. Perhaps it had been because at the time, the lecture had taken place on the back of a Predacon that was constantly trying to but in and convince them that it knew better training methods than diving into pools of acid while bungee jumping to get the energon flowing. In retrospect, perhaps the lecturer had been a bit closer to the Autobot eccentricity than they would have liked to admit.)_

She eventually opted for the straightforward approach. She still didn't know much about Grimlock in general, but she had a strong suspicion that he would either be totally oblivious to manipulation... or, distressingly, was a lot more clever than he let on and would turn it around on her in an increasingly complicated and obnoxious avalanche of plots for the express purpose of making her feel a fool later on.

So she stepped forward, to her full height. Strongarm was, as standard-frame Autobots tended to be nowadays, not at all small. She was large for most Autobots in her size range; only those suitable to transform into, say, trucks tended to be broader or wider than her, and she had enough considerable mechanical mass was sufficiently to be most easily expressed as a human SUV.

Nonetheless, Grimlock made her feel small. He wasn't just tall (he might have made _Ultra Magnus _feel a bit on the normal size by comparison), but he was immensely wide, nearly as wide as he was tall. She had once seen Predaking in his full glory, striding on a street to introduce newly minted Predacon sparklings to those Autobots he grudgingly acknowledged as kin. Grimlock strikingly reminded her of Predaking, if decidedly less... classy.

He appeared not to notice. If her momentary discomfort was apparent, he didn't call attention to it. The least you could say about him was that he didn't flaunt his size or power against those smaller or weaker. "Yeah?" he said. A large brow-plate raised up.

"I'll be blunt. You need a hobby."

"I need a what not?"

"A hobby." She cleared her throat. "Um. My translator must be glitching. The human language protocols aren't what they should be, I suppose. The most basic summation is, I suppose a hobby might be-"

Grimlock snorted. "Stop that, I _know _what a hobby is! And I got some. Mainly smashing 'Cons. It's fun, productive, promotes good health, and is environmentally friendly."

This last comment short circuited whatever else she might have been thinking. "I'm sorry, but you lost me. How is fighting Decepticons good for the environment of this planet?"

Grimlock grinned. His teeth were disconcertingly sharp even in robot mode. "Uh...? The 'Cons stink up this place something awful. Smashing them makes the world cleaner. Or something."

"I'll just... yes, certainly. Fine." She tapped the side of her face. She shifted stance; a broad hip-servo hissed into new position to support her weight. "I mean something to occupy your time and energy when we are off duty that _doesn't _draw undue attention to ourselves."

"What in the world could I do that doesn't involve breaking stuff _what the Pit is this cute little guy._" This last was directed at a small chirping creature that, however inexplicably in the face of Grimlock's sheer size and monstrous appearance, had alighted upon his shoulder.

Strongarm blinked. "There is a small creature on you,"

Grimlock closed his eyes, connecting to the human information networks and summon all relevant information. It took longer than it might for her; she had seen the medical charts on his processors. The... modifications to his circuitry was extremely unhappy to think about.

"Internet says it's a birb," Grimlock said eventually.

Strongarm frowned. She looked up the same information. "All the dictionaries and enchiridions suggest that it's called a bird."

"Nah. Birb."

"...Bird."

"Birb!"

"_Bird._"

"Tough luck. I'm the dinosaur expert here and the king of them all. I can call it a birb if I want to."

"That's a dinosaur?" She gave it an odd look. "I thought those were extinct."

"Common misconception. So, yeah, that's an Earth dinosaur. Just a real little one." Grimlock rubbed it's head affectionately; the little bird passively accepted the nuzzle of a green-plated claw vastly outsizing it.

Grimlock's optics lit up. He grinned wide. "I have an idea for a hobby."

"...Yes?" Strongarm said uncertainly.

"I'm gonna take up birb watching!"

"Oh! That sounds surprisingly harmless."

"And I'll raise them right," Grimlock continued. "I'll breed them good, make them bigger and stronger through the generations, and revive the ancient saurian traits until they stand bigger than humans, ready to fight and smash and be _awesome! THE DINOSAURS WILL WALK THE EARTH A LITTLE MORE OBVIOUSLY!_"

"What."

"Maybe the humans will ride them too!" Grimlock said. "And carry big miniguns and flamethrowers as they ride against our mutual enemies. That'd be great!"

The bird chirped.

"...Ah," Strongarm said, worrying what she had set into motion.


End file.
